DeVore says Fiorina must work to earn the trust of his backers

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In his concession speech in Tustin on Tuesday night, Republican Senate candidate Chuck DeVore said he had encouraged his onetime rival Carly Fiorina to fight “as vigorously as possible over the next five months, to ensure that Barbara Boxer cannot be returned to Capitol Hill -- and that we end her 28-year reign on Capitol Hill.”
“If any year is the year to defeat Barbara Boxer, this is the year,” the Irvine Assemblyman told dozens of supporters who gathered at his election-night party at the Tustin Banquet Hall. “This is the year that people are seriously reconsidering what it means to have a government that tries to do everything for everybody and simply defer the costs to the next generation. We cannot keep doing this.”

DeVore said he was confident that Fiorina could vigorously make the case for ‘a restrained government that can live within its means.’ But while DeVore said he would be willing to campaign for Fiorina -- if asked -- he did not specifically ask his own volunteers to get out and campaign for Fiorina once the race was called Tuesday night.

“I don’t command my followers,” DeVore said in an interview after his speech. “They don’t follow me, they follow the principles I was espousing. ... If she keeps on espousing those principles, they’ll gladly follow her. If she thinks that she has to run back to the middle to win, then it’s going to be hard to get them to help.”

“Fiorina needs to get out there and start campaigning and work to bring those people in,” he continued. “To the extent that she brings them in, it makes it easier for me to encourage them to put their shoulder to the wheel to do the same,” he said. “I can’t do it by myself.’
When asked whether he would feel comfortable campaigning for Fiorina after repeatedly criticizing her record and accusing her of shifting her stance on issues ranging from the Wall Street bailout to cap and trade, DeVore quipped: “She adopted my campaign, so I should be pretty comfortable campaigning for her, because her platform is my platform.”

-- Maeve Reston in Tustin